It’s Wednesday, and I’m finally getting back to this after a super long break. Sorry, guys.

I have a few things going on, and I’m super excited about how well it’s going. Let’s get started.

The Path to Biological… Oh, my. Where do I start with this? I can tell you that it is without doubt the most frustrating thing I have ever worked on. I know, not exactly the most positive reaction. I’m done with the first draft of part 2, and I only have about 20 chapters (all super short) left until I’m done with draft two, but still. It’s frustrating. Fellow authors, I hope you understand so I know I’m not the only one!

The Child of Fault is going really well. I’m so excited about it! I’m handwriting the draft for now, but I’ve done 66 chapters. I have 89. You do the math. I’m super close! Then I just need to type it…

I’m also working on another book called Work In Progress. It’s a memoir. It’s my journey to accepting that I will always be a work in progress, and I will never be perfect, and learning how to be okay with that. I will be telling the story as it happened, and then putting positives in. I’m a little over 10,000 words. Not quite where I was hoping to be at this stage, but I’m working on it!

Guys… I know I haven’t been the most consistent blogger in the world, but thank you to those of you that have stuck with me. I’m trying to get back in the habit, promise!

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Hopefully I’ll be back in Monday with another post. Until then…stay tuned!

On February 11, 2017, I had the opportunity to participate in the Houston Authors Bash in Katy, Texas. It was a great day of being with authors and like-minded people. I may have been a little excited…

Hey, it was pretty much a dream come true for this event.

I’ve been in multi-author events before, but this one felt very different. I’m thinking it may have been the fact that I didn’t have a day job to go back to that I was absolutely dreading. Thank goodness for that!

I even took my excitement so far as to take a picture of my table, which I may or may not have done once before…

Can you blame me? That is a beautiful piece of work right there. Zebra striped cash box and pen stolen from the motel included! Oh yeah, and those bookmarks that I finally got to give out to people!

A few days after the Bash, someone took my picture from the page and shared it and tagged me in it. I have to say, I’m pretty in love with it.

Who wouldn’t be when they look that awesome?

It was really a dream come true last weekend. I had such an amazing time. And for once, I actually got out of there with no new books! How that happened, I will never understand.

It was incredible, and I wouldn’t change that day for anything. I may have only sold three, but this event really was a dream come true.

Man, it’s been a while since I’ve done this… So sorry, everyone! I’m back, and hopefully I’m back to doing this on a more normal basis.

I’m going to try and take a different approach to this, because it seems like a lot of times I just say different things are on hold. So instead, I’m going to just talk about the manuscript that I’ve actually been working on during the week. Hopefully that will give you a better idea of how far along I am.

I’m currently working on The Path to Biological. Yep, I’m still wrestling with that gosh dang manuscript, and I’m still working on the rewrite…ugh. I’m almost done with it, though. At the rate I’m going, I’ll be done with it before the end of the year!

Let me clarify: I’m typing up the rewrite, since I got done handwriting it a month or so ago. My goal is to do five pages a day. I was sticking with just five, but tonight I decided to do more… I got more like eleven, which is amazing.

There was 144 pages in the last draft. I’m not sure how many will be in this one, but I took several out of the last one. I’m on page 102, I believe… So close, yet so far!

I want to say that there will be a part two in this book. It was supposed to be a sequel, but it will be part two instead. Hopefully by next week, I will be that much closer to saying that I’m working on the first draft for it!

For the past week, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the future. If you’ve been reading my posts for a long time, you know I am a caregiver to a special needs child.

While I love the job I have, I want to do something more with my life. Something big. Something that can show the world who I am, but also to help improve it.

I had the opportunity to go to San Antonio to meet my editor, mentor, and very dear friend, Lisa James, last Saturday. She mentioned something to me about public speaking, and at first I thought that would never happen, because I would be terrified to speak in front of a big crowd. Then I gave it some more thought… Why shouldn’t I? I can make a difference in the world.

A lot of you may not know this, but Days of the Kill is so much more than just an entertaining murder mystery. It was actually a release for me. I had major anger issues. I was on the verge of actually breaking the law and spending the rest of my life in prison. I was that bad. Then I got the idea for this book… I took the idea and ran with it. I was so much happier after writing it. It’s amazing what writing can do.

Some of you may have seen my post a couple months back about getting out of a toxic relationship. I only wrote about one on here, but in reality, I’ve been in a string of them.

My goal is to be able to make enough royalties off of my book sales to be able to travel and speak out against toxic relationships. I want to be this motivational speaker that helps to make a difference in the world and speaks out against what has been such a taboo subject for far too long. I want to show people that you can bounce back, no matter how difficult it is.

I will always be a work in progress. I understand that. I will never be perfect, and that’s okay. It’s okay that nobody will ever be perfect.

This dream of motivational speaking is why I advertise my book. My experience is why I want to be able to travel and speak out against such a horrible thing.

I know I’ve been slacking on the posting lately. I’m trying to get back to it regularly. I promise!

It’s Wednesday, so we’re looking at how far I am on getting my next book out.

I’m so proud of how far I’ve come. You might be surprised!

The Path to Biological is still with the beta reader. I plan on getting in touch with her, because it’s been a little over a month. I told her no rush, but I do want to get back to it eventually. I have major rewrites to do!

The Child of Fault is now with beta readers. I know, the last time I posted I was still on the third draft. I’ve done four, and it’s with them. Isn’t that amazing? I’ve gotten so much more done with it!

Bethany’s Corpse is going well. I’ve edited ten chapters in the third draft. Yay! At this rate, I should be getting done with the third and fourth draft in just a few weeks. I can always hope for that, anyway!

Do You Remember Me is still on hold. I hope to be getting back to it in just a couple weeks. I’m looking forward to it. I actually miss working on this manuscript!

Living Through Abuse is still on hold as well. I’ll get back to it as soon as I possibly can… Hopefully it’ll be soon. I may just have to skip over some things and get back to it sooner!

I didn’t have a lot to report this week, but it was enough. I’m just proud of how far I’ve gotten in just a short amount of time. That’s about all for this week. Here’s to hoping I have even more to post next week! Until then…stay tuned!

The good thing about doing an extra post a week and a half ago is that there was no month in between posts unlike my other site.

Anyway… It’s Wednesday, so it’s time to look at where I am with being published. Have I ever mentioned how much I love these? 🙂

The Path to Biological is on hold currently. Well, not really because I thought of something that needs to be done, but… It’s currently with a beta reader. Yep, I’ve done beta readers for this one before. But I needed to get another one because of the major rewrite I did… It’s just too bad that yet another rewrite will need to be done! Ugh!

The Child of Fault is finally not on hold anymore! I’m working on the fourth draft, which is amazing to me. I’m over 100 pages in. Right after that, I’ll be looking for beta readers… I can’t be the only one sensing a theme here.

Bethany’s Corpse is on hold still. I’ll be looking at that right after I get The Child of Fault done. I’ll be on the third draft. My goal is to get to it by the end of this month. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

Do You Remember Me is on hold as well. That’s still on the first draft, but we’ll see how that goes. I’m so ready to get to it. It’s a fun book to write! Challenging, but fun.

Living Through Abuse is still on hold as well. That also is a challenging book to write. I’ll get to it, though. I may completely start over, but I’ll get to it. The only reason I’m starting over is because I realized I need to write about all my toxic relationships. Not just the one I was so incredibly focused on.

I still have yet to start on my part of the compilation book I’m part of, From Surviving to Thriving. I plan on starting it…eventually. Maybe not until next month some time, but eventually.

Also, on that note… From Surviving to Thriving is a compilation about domestic violence. If you were in a toxic relationship of any sort, or if maybe you were the abuser and now you’ve gotten away from that life, you are more than welcome to join the book. We would love to have you! It’s not just for women. Men, you are welcome to come join us as well. Get in contact with me. There is a tab with all of my contact information (Facebook is what I check most often… Author S. Courtney Killian), and I will get you in contact with the people that you need to be in contact with. Also, please know that if you don’t want your name, picture, or bio in the book, that’s okay, too. You absolutely can author under a pen name.

I never thought the day would come when I would write about this. If you had told me even just a week ago that I would be sitting here writing this today, I would have thought you were crazy.

I’ve been in a string of toxic relationships. One when I was 15 that I talk about all the time on my show (which I will talk more about at the end), one when I was 18 and was engaged to, and the one that I’ve been on and off with for the past five years.

The one that just ended permanently on Wednesday.

I met this guy when the youth group at my former church went to Arkansas on a mission trip. There he was. He was tall, handsome, and had those deep blue eyes that you could swear see straight into your soul. Oh, that boy was hard to resist. He was totally open and honest about his past, which I loved. I told him some of my deepest, darkest secrets because I felt like I could trust him. I barely knew this guy, but before I knew it, I was telling him things I had never told anybody else.

He asked me to be his girlfriend the same day we met. I had felt myself falling for him long before he asked, so of course, I said yes. I was over the moon. Here was the guy that everybody wanted, and he had asked me, the girl that nobody paid attention to. The invisible girl. That shot my self-esteem way up.

The week ended way too soon. Every single time I had to part from him, it was depressing. I was addicted to this guy. Every part of my being told me he was the one. You can imagine how hard it was for me when I had to part from him for the last time when the week was over.

We had plans after he finished his first year of school. So many plans… He was going to move to Texas and be with me after the first year.

Well…things didn’t exactly turn out as planned.

About a month into the relationship, I was told that he was cheating on me. By his ex-girlfriend. I didn’t believe her, because he was telling me otherwise. Who did she think I was going to believe? Her or him? Of course I chose my boyfriend. He would never do that to me. Never.

The relationship ended after four and a half months. He was, in fact, cheating me. I was devastated. I was hurt. I was angry. I felt like I would never be okay again.

We stayed friends on Facebook. Why, I don’t know, but we did. There would be times when I couldn’t stand him, and there would be times when he couldn’t stand me. I would have other boyfriends, and he would have other girlfriends. Even when I couldn’t stand him, there was some part of me that told me I still loved him…and that was the part that made it so hard for me to see pictures with other girls.

This went on for a while. Then he would break up with them and come running to me. “I still love you. I still want to be with you.” There would be times when I was with a guy and told him no, but more often than not, I would be available and easily take him back. Every single time I ended up being burned. I was cheated on once again.

People would ask me, “Why do you still talk to him? Why do you still care? Why don’t you just cut off all contact with him?” It just wasn’t that simple. He was addictive. There was just something about him that I couldn’t get enough of.

Finally, in January of 2014, when we split up once again, I told myself to take a year off of dating. I made sure to stick with that commitment. I needed to focus on myself, because I had just become way too dependent on being in a relationship. He tried to get in contact with me whenever he and another girl split up throughout that year, but I made sure to stay strong. It wasn’t always easy, but I did it.

In July of 2015, we started talking again. I told him that I was tired of the games, and we can talk about dating, but we are not actually getting together until he comes and visits. It wasn’t easy to reject him like that, but I was able to. We lost contact before he came to visit, and I found out why: As it turns out, he had another girlfriend. Yet another crash and burn moment for me.

I thought at that point I was done with him. I thought for sure I would never hear from him again. Nope. Not a chance. In December of 2015, he contacted me again, and all of my feelings came flooding back. I told him the same rules apply. If he really wants to date, he is going to come to Texas and ask me to be his girlfriend, but it wasn’t allowed on the first time. We needed to go on an actual date.

He came…a time or two, but he never did ask. I was on a guest on a show shortly before I started my own, and I talked about him as, “The guy I’m talking to.” He was upset about that. “Why didn’t you say boyfriend? You should have said boyfriend. We’re practically dating.” I told him my reasons and he said he understood…even if he was disappointed. He passed it off as having a crappy week, which I totally believed, because my week hadn’t been the best, either.

We go on talking, and we joke about dating, and I would teasingly tell him that he needs to come and ask me to be his girlfriend. He kept saying he would try.

Suddenly, there would be a week or two that we go without talking. I asked him about that, and he said he was just busy with work. I bought that…for a while. He’s a truck driver. Of course he’s going to be busy.

I have this app called “Who Deleted Me?” Wednesday evening comes, and I get a notification from that app… This guy that I had been talking to again had deleted me off of Facebook.

It seems silly that this would spark something so huge, but really, it did. I looked closer at his Facebook profile picture, and it was him with this girl…and a picture of a sonogram. That’s right, his girlfriend is expecting a baby. Needless to say, I was devastated yet again.

I talked to a friend about this, but then something happened in that short conversation. I felt a surge of motivation to get him out of my life completely. I realized all of the signs that I had just passed by the last five years, and I was more than happy to block him on all social media accounts, something I had never done before.

I thought I would feel awful the next morning, but no, I felt amazing. I felt better than I had in a long time, if ever. If he wants to have a baby with someone else, so be it. He’s out of my life permanently. I tell me reflection, “I love you,” every single time I look in the mirror now, and gosh darn it, I mean it! It’s such an amazing feeling, and I love it. My self-esteem has never been higher! He’s out of my life permanently now, and this time, I know that for sure.

I’ve told a few people about my experience, and a couple of them have thought it was strange that realizing he’s going to have a kid with someone else is what pushed me to get rid of him permanently. The truth is, it wasn’t that. It was realizing all the signs and realizing that I would be so much better without him in it.

I can try to deny it, but my heart has been given to him for five long years, and I finally took it back. This is what freedom feels like, and I absolutely love it.

Am I saying that I’ll never have a bad day again? No, of course not. I’ll have bad days, bad moments, whatever you want to call it. Everybody does, and there’s nothing you can do about it. But what I do know is that I’m prepared to combat those bad moments with a high self-esteem and my head held higher than it’s ever been before.

I’m a work in progress, and I always will be one. This week just happened to shoot me further in my journey than I ever have been before.

Check out the latest episode of my show, Work In Progress with Courtney Killian! I record every Monday at 7:30PM CST. I hope to see you there!

I’ve never done this whole two posts in one day thing before… Let’s do this thing.

You guys. I have done so much the past few weeks. I’m so excited about how well it’s gone! Let’s hope I can make it sound like this… I should be able to. Yay.

The Path to Biological is going so much faster now that I’m typing it! I just started Chapter 60 last night. I’m just over 36,000 words. This is so exciting. I should be finishing this week or next week… I hope!

The Child of Fault is still on hold, but I should be getting back to it soon. I’m getting close… I just have to get to a point where I can just dump the main focus on someone else.

That sounds awful. But anyway…

Bethany’s Corpse is still on hold as well. It’s in the lineup, I swear. I’ll get to it. It may be a couple months, but I’ll get there. Eventually. I’m on the third draft, I think. Jeez, it’s been a while…

Do You Remember Me is still on hold as well. I keep hoping to start a sprint with the group I used to sprint with…. Now I probably won’t until I get my laptop back. The motherboard decided to crash. So much fun.

Living Through Abuse is, yes, on hold as well. I’m excited about this one, so hopefully it won’t be too long. I could skip to it, but I need to let my fiction works have a chance, too. 😉

I know, I know, it sounds like I’m not doing much, but really, I am! It feels like a lot more than it looks on paper. Believe me, 36,000 words in three or four weeks was not easy. I’m really pushing myself by doing there. Bring it on.